Our chef enjoys a few days of flirting as he and his PD crush play house together, but all good things must come to an end, especially when you’re pretending you’re someone you’re not. There are so many feelings flying around and no one talking about them, and eventually all that unspoken chemistry starts to break free in misdirected jealousies. Not to mention, little bro finally finds out about his hyung’s side hustle, and it all adds up to not a great time in Jin-sung’s world.
EPISODES 7-8 WEECAP
Last week we left off with Tae-wan as he encountered Jing-sung’s pecs sauntering around Ah-jin’s apartment. Rather than just admit that Jin-sung was sleeping over until the burglar is caught, Jin-sung unsuccessfully tries to cover with excuses and send Tae-wan off as soon as possible. When he does leave, Tae-wan spots Jin-woo in the jacket Jin-sung wore during his audition, which throws up Tae-wan’s jealousy antennae again, and now it seems that he’s worried about both Ah-jin and Jin-woo competing for his crush’s affections. Sigh.
There’s plenty of jealousy to go around this week. While their time spent with Jin-sung sleeping on Ah-jin’s floor prompts some of this chemistry, the inevitable end of their cohabitation that seems to really drive the big, frustrating feelings of this pair of episodes. The burglar is caught (though not before Sung-eun announces Ah-jin’s constipation problem while Jin-sung hides in Ah-jin’s bathroom) and there’s officially no longer any reason for the two to fall asleep next to each other every night. Cue: some real toxic jealousy.
The problem here is that everyone else believes they are in a different reality from the one that Jin-sung actually resides in. So when Ah-jin finds herself jealous over Jin-sung’s ex-girlfriend (thanks, PD Nam and your continual efforts of evil), she assumes there’s no hope and doesn’t protest too hard when Sung-eun tricks her into a date with their colleague PD KANG MIN-SOO (at Bistro, of course).
The second-hand embarrassment is back in full force as Jin-sung barges his way into Ah-jin and Min-soo’s date. Forgive me if I missed something significant that happened in that scene; I was watching it through my fingers.
Jin-sung’s frustration finally erupts in some jealousy that does not look good on him at all. He mocks Ah-jin for her supposed insipid flirting, and thank goodness she stands up for herself and tells Jin-sung loud and clear that she doesn’t need his permission to date anyone. Jin-sung realizes that he’s overstepped as soon as she disappears out his door, but the damage is done.
Perhaps I can forgive him, if I consider the other stress Jin-sung has been under. You know it’s bad when your dad is sending giant boxes of potatoes to your front door. Jin-woo finally watches an episode of the show and realizes how his brother covered their dad’s hospital expenses. Understandably, he’s not happy. He understands the why, but it doesn’t mean that all is forgiven right away. Or does it?
Jin-sung doesn’t win his brother back with his food, but Jin-woo comes back around pretty quickly when offered a nice clothes rack and a private visit to Tae-wan’s studio. It really feels like Jin-woo should be more upset over this, right? He has a multi-layered complaint that he can lodge against his brother: lying to him, putting their livelihood in danger by committing fraud, and using Jin-woo’s actual identity as a costume to make quick cash.
But a quick flashback to the boys spending time with their mother and father before she died suggests that these two have been bonded together for a while, so perhaps they understand one another deeply enough to forgive quickly. And when they make up, it’s not because of the thing that Jin-sung loves (food), but rather by Jin-sung offering things that Jin-woo loves (fashion).
I’ve struggled to connect with Ah-jin since the beginning, mostly because her plans have felt naive and misguided. But I can appreciate the way that she sticks to her principles, and also doesn’t change for anyone. Everyone has wrinkled their noses up at her loud aesthetic and messy apartment, but Ah-jin clearly doesn’t care. After perhaps seeing one too many immaculate apartments in dramas lately, her style of cleaning is a breath of fresh air. Ah-jin just punting random things out of sight really made me smile.
And since the show is all about food, the preparation and the eating, I was so happy to see Ah-jin give it her all to make a meal to share with Jin-sung. Her skills definitely don’t compare to her chef bestie, but the show makes sure to show that it’s alright as long as you try and love what you’re doing while you do it.
And then there’s Tae-wan in this whole mess. Even when he’s being jealous and childish, he’s just so level-headed and smart. He’s able to ask Ah-jin about the mystery boy in Jin-sung’s life pretty quickly, and then all it takes is Ah-jin pointing out that Tae-wan has been over to her house just as much as anyone for him to dismiss his remaining concerns. If only his worries weren’t actually right on target, when it comes to Ah-jin at least.
Tae-wan is apparently the only one who can stand up to the trash can of a human being that is PD Nam. “A compliment isn’t supposed to offend anyone.” Tae-wan has been dropping these truths since day one. If only everyone else would step up for once. I’ve been disappointed by Ah-jin’s preference to just brush off PD Nam’s bad behavior, so it was good to see her really yell at him after he dragged Jin-sung’s ex-girlfriend out as his proof that Ah-jin is lying to everyone.
Though it still worries me that there hasn’t been an appropriate comeuppance for this guy so far. We need something to take him down a peg so that we don’t have to tolerate his gloating when the truth comes out. Now that he has the prospect of an interview, I can only imagine how he will screw things up and try to blame Ah-jin.
And then we have our big finale to close out the midpoint of our show. Ah-jin turns up drunkenly at Bistro and proceeds to confess her feelings to Jin-sung. Her confession is muddied by second-hand embarrassment for me as well, because I can’t help imagine her unloading this on a person who is actually gay and them then being forced to try to disentangle themselves from it all.
But once I brush that aside, there’s a lot of great tension leading into Jin-sung’s reciprocation. The moment takes it slowly, allowing Jin-sung to continue to flounder around until he realizes that she really does like him too, and then he leans in for a kiss that feels really right.
But next week is going to be really messy, isn’t it?